Devices commonly known as hookahs have been used for several centuries in the Mideast and oriental countries for the smoking of organic materials such as tobacco. Early hookahs were multi-stemmed pipes often made of glass. A variety of, generally dried, organic material, such as tobacco, herbal fruits and flower heads were placed in a combustion chamber or bowl and ignited. As a user would draw a vacuum on a stem of the pipe, the smoke would be drawn out of the combustion chamber, into the lungs of the user. Multiple stems allowed for multiple users to gather around the hookah to share its burning content in a social setting.
As users of hookahs grew less willing to accept the harsh high-temperature smoke produced by various substances that would irritate their lungs, a simple water bath was added to the basic pipe so that the smoke was bubbled through the water bath to remove ash and to cool and filter the smoke before it was drawn into the lungs of a user. A pipe from this subclass of hookahs became known as a “bong”, a name derived from a That word that was introduced into U.S. slang by Vietnam veterans during the 1960's.
The classic bong, or water pipe, has a single, vertical, elongate open pipe about 38 mm (1½ inch) in diameter sealed at the bottom, a bowl for burning the organic substance, a single tube used for mounting the bowl and leading at an angle into the elongate pipe near its bottom. Water is placed into the elongate pipe to a level just above the junction of the open pipe and the bowl tube so that when the smoker draws on the pipe, smoke is bubbled through the water to cool and clean it. The smoke is further cooled by expansion into the wide elongate pipe. Thus the elongate pipe operates as a combined water and inhalation chamber. To clear smoke from the chamber of most common water pipes the entire bowl must be removed. Somewhat more sophisticated pipes have a small diameter hole known as a “shotgun” located in the elongate pipe just above the water level to facilitate inhaling the smoke from the chamber. This hole, if present, is kept closed by the smoker's finger during the initial stages of a smoking session. When the elongate pipe is filled with smoke, the hole is opened and the smoke is driven into the lungs with a ram effect.
Until relatively recently, artisans in the design of pipes have generally prided themselves on the simplicity of their designs, setting their articles apart from those of others by the use of decals and hand-painted adornments. The present design takes a much different approach, setting it apart from previous designs by applying significant technological advancements to the cooling and filtering functions. Only a few others are known to have applied any mechanical sophistication to advance the basic design of a water pipe.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,881,499 issued to McFadden, et al. in 1975 discloses a bong wherein there is a water chamber located above an ash trap rather than below it. An extensive set of cooling tubes are routed from the ash trap to different levels in the water chamber so that one or more of the tubes are operative depending upon the strength of the draw.
An object of U.S. Pat. No. 4,253,475 issued in 1981 to Schreiber, et al. is to provide a bong wherein the water used for cooling and cleaning the smoke is caused to flush up the inhalation chamber in order to push the smoke into the lungs of the smoker, thereby easing the drawing of smoke. This design also takes into consideration that the components of the bong are easily removed in order to facilitate cleaning.
The invention described by Grihalva in his U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,806 included a gravity-actuated one-way ball check valve assembly. This created a smoke trap to inhibit the escape of smoke from the smoke collection chamber.